Promote was OK for its intended use - but we feel like as a strategic choice it is better fit on an item. This allows us to control the effect in many different ways than a Summoner Spell does (who buys it, when it becomes available in a game, and how much cost you're paying for the effect).

As for Surge - we definitely missed the mark. Originally Surge was envisioned as a team oriented spell, something similar to old Rally. After a few iterations it had to be toned down, but we didn't want to make the user feel worse for taking it. As it stands now, it does come down to which spell is going to give you more damage - Ignite or Surge. In an overwhelming majority of cases, Ignite will actually give you more mileage even if Surge sounds better. This becomes especially true later in the game as Ignite ignores armor / magic resist. Surge was fun to cast, and had good synergy with a particular couple champions - but a majority of the time it was actually a trap. There were some fun aspects of it - turret pushing, clever edge case uses, and getting bigger, but it overall was a false choice.

So... Why is Revive still in the game? It is also hardly used except maybe for a few niche champions and even then its still considered to be vastly weaker than other, better summoner spells.

So... Why is Revive still in the game? It is also hardly used except maybe for a few niche champions and even then its still considered to be vastly weaker than other, better summoner spells.

Yet, at the same time, it is one of the most relevant late game summoner spells. If you have to wait a whole minute while the enemy's getting baron, and your team is aced, they're gonna have baron uncontested. However, if you have revive (and it's off cooldown) you might actually get the steal.

With revive, it's not the summoner spell that's the problem, it's how you use it.